Happiness, Hardships and Hallmark

Sunday morning dawned bright and early. I say early because I set my alarm the night before and I set it way earlier than I needed to. Duh. Not a morning girl. And I still wasn't ready for church on time:) Side note-I wore my favorite shoes of all time to church, my red high heels. I'm not what you would call graceful. Walking out of the house into the garage I tripped on all the roller skates that the girls left right in the doorway. I thought Nate would pass out from trying to hold his laughter in. Our rule is that you have to make sure the other person is okay before you laugh, but he was laughing so hard he couldn't/wouldn't abide by the rule:) A broken nose would have been the perfect accessory to go with the HUGE zit on my chin. Lovely. Anyway. We had our primary program this week so the first 4 rows of seats were reserved. We had to sit in outer darkness. The program was done very well. All the eight year old girls wore their white baptism dresses, it was very sweet and the girls were nervous but they did great on their speaking parts.
After church was my lovely Sunday afternoon nap. After I woke up the girls and I went out to the garage and got out the Halloween decorations. Having just cleaned out the garage and throwing most of it away I have come to realize that I barely have any Halloween decorations. Good thing I'm going to Utah next week and I can visit Gardner Village, Tai Pan and Quilted Bear. While we were in the garage I got out the photo albums. The girls had great fun poking fun at our 80's hair. It is really too bad I don't have a scanner. Too bad:)
Dinner Sunday at the Dana's. If you are loyal, you would have read about it in the next post. Yummy paella. Thanks again!
Monday was another relaxing day with Nate on his day off. Or yard work. When will it cool off??? We had lunch plans with Kyle and Diana so I went in to get cleaned up. I came out of the shower to hear Nate talking on the phone to one of the guys at his work. Yesterday his company closed one of the stores in another part of the Valley. No warning. I have been feeling really sad for all of those people who woke up yesterday thinking that they had a good job to go to. I realize that this is something that is happening all over the country to thousands of people and I am so grateful for Nate's job. It's too bad that the industry he is in is driven by a good and strong economy. It makes you think and Nate and I were talking and we came to the conclusion that you can't worry about what you can't change. Just keep your chin up and keep doing your best. At the end of the day we will have each other and the kids and that is what matters the most.
On a happier note! About two months ago I applied for a job with Hallmark. Well, today I finally went and had the final interview and signed all the papers and I start next week! I really wanted this job because it affords a lot of freedom with the scheduling so I can still go in and help at the girls school, or if one of my kids is sick it is easy to work around that. I start next week. I also go out of town next week for 9 days. :) They were really nice about that. So I think that brings me to this point. I have Young Womens tonight, we are having a fireside with the bishop. Should be good!
It is 5:18 and I want everyone to know that I have only had ONE Dr. Pepper today. One. And I am pleasantly surprised to find myself still alive. And yes, I have the beginnings of a headache. And no, I'm not quitting.

What am I supposed to do with all this paella?!?

Tonight we headed over to the Dana's house for a yummy paella dinner. Being a picky eater and hesitant to try new food, I was very happy to discover how yummy it is! Kyle made two kinds, one with mussels and shrimp and one with chicken. Yummy yummy yummy. Thanks Dana's! It was a great night and Kyle and Diana both had their parents there and Kyle's brother. Living across the street from each other is so convenient! We just keep walking back and forth to each others house and eating as we please. Of course, my kids seem to end up there more than anything. A clear indication of my cooking abilities:)

Career Day

I was just thinking that I should have been documenting these theme days from the beginning of the year. Megan informed me last night about 6:30 that today is Career Day and she wants to be a doctor. Luckily we just happen to have a very nice doctor living across the street! Kyle brought his medical bag over last night and let Megan choose what she wanted to take to school and he also brought a lab coat. He checked out Megan's reflexes while he was here and we realized that she doesn't have any:) Thanks Kyle! (Sorry about that whole name tag thing)
Sammy wanted to be a ballerina. Luckily I bought her a leotard about 3 or 4 years ago:) so she had something to wear. Good thing she is so tiny. I'm not sure she has grown in the last few years.

I told the girls that they should go to school as stay at home moms. What better job is there? I could have put some grease in their hair, put them in sweat pants. KIDDING! About the grease in the hair. I wonder what next week will bring...

YIKES!

Just realized someone typed girls into a search engine and came across my blog. Heaven help me. Sickos need not come by.

Tuesday

Well, I was forced into accomplishing way more before 10:30 today than I like to. I like to be a little lazy and stretch things out through the day. :) I can admit it. I forgot I needed to take my car in for service this morning, luckily Nate reminded me while he was driving my car to work. Right. So I showered EARLY and headed off to go get my car and take it to the dealership. Nate doesn't work too far from where I needed to go, so it's all good. The tire pressure is low light wouldn't go off in my car. (And yes, we did check the tire pressure.) Since we are still under warranty, they need to fix everything! Apparently, my spare tire was low on air. There is a sensor back there. So they checked all my tires and got them all squared away. Since they were so fast I had them demonstrate how to get the spare tire off and show me where all the tools are. I know how to change a tire, thanks to Nate, but all the cars we have owned have the spare in different places. My biggest fear, (not really) is being in the middle of no where and breaking down or getting a flat.
So, Krispy Kreme just happens to be a hop, skip, and a jump away. Can't resist. Even better, Hobby Lobby is minutes away! Apparently all the moms with kids in school rush to Hobby Lobby as soon as their kids are gone. The lines were nuts.
The girls had Activity Days today. Sammy has been reluctant to go, so I was lucky enough to go with her and sit in the corner. No, I didn't want that hour to myself to get dinner started. So I rushed home, cooked dinner and then I had Young Women in Excellence tonight. Can I just say how wonderful the families in our ward our? The girls are so fabulous and you can tell that they come from strong families.
So it has been pretty busy today. I'm tired. Tomorrow is short day.

Recap

I haven't blogged for a while. We've been busy and having a good time.
First, I have to start with Megan. Megan just adores animals and wants to do what she can to help. In fact, she has never cared a whole lot for dolls, even as a baby she preferred stuffed animals. Well she is good friends with a couple of really cute girls and they have formed a club to help animals. They decided to raise money to help endangered animals. For $50, you can "adopt" an animal. Megan loves pandas. Anyway, the girls decided to put together a garage sale and one of her friends moms was kind enough to host. They started out with about $30. They hoped to raise $100. Well...drumroll....they raised $179! Now they can help 4 animals! Way to go girls!
At church on Sunday, we received the very tragic news that a wonderful man in the ward was struck and killed by a drunk driver on Saturday. Like Lori was saying, news like this makes you hold even closer to your family. Our prayers are with the Adams family.
We had the Dana's over for dinner Sunday night. It was fun and the food so yummy! Nate barbecued and he always does a great job. Our families get along really great, even all the kids. That just doesn't happen very often.
Monday was Nate's day off. We spent the whole day relaxing and having leisure time. Hahahaha. We cleaned out the garage. Finally! And now I can park my car in there. For those of you that don't live in AZ, we don't have basements here, so there isn't anywhere to put all of our crap. We've cleaned out the garage several times, but it all makes its way out again.

Now my back is killing me. If only I knew a chiropractor. I'm KIDDING!
We were both homicidal hungry maniacs afterward so we headed to lunch and found the cutest store called the Brownie Connection. It smelled yummy and we all got a treat. Nate has started making his famous French Onion Soup on Mondays so we went home and he got started. He made a triple batch since it is so good and it took him 2 hours to make it!








The whole house smells of onions so I thought I would burn candles. Now it smells of Autumn Spice and onions. Jealous?
It was a good day around here yesterday. Sammy earned 6 stars on her good girl chart. We played family games. You can see the love oozing out of here. Cross your fingers that it will last:)

Where NOT to leave your husband's car keys

Yesterday I went to put something in Nate's car and while I was outside I thought I would wander over to the Dana's house to infringe on their quiet time and bug them a bit. Since I was wearing my cut off sweats with no pockets and I just had to hold Baby Jack, I very innocently set Nate's keys on their kitchen counter. I talked for a while and then went home.
Nate came in this morning to give me my good morning kiss and he asked me where I put his keys. Oh yeah! I left them at the Dana's. He didn't want to wake them so early in the morning so he took my car to work. A few minutes later he called and told me to go out and see what the Dana's had done to his car. Oh great, I have to drive it today! I wander out there in all my beauty and see this.

Kyle stole our car! Can't you get 20 years of hard time for this? I just can't figure out why he would do this to us. I mean, there was that time we may or may not have put that big rainbow bumper sticker on his truck that says Man Hungry and he didn't notice it right away and drove away. But that couldn't possibly be the reason:) My kids were thrilled and were hopeful that we would be able to keep their van. I guess with their four kids they need it more than we do. But Kyle kindly took the girls to school in the "Toaster" and that made their day! Watch out Dana's!

Farmer Day

Every week at the school they have a theme day. Today is Farmer Day. Don't they look cute?

I do think I am growing weary of the theme days. They are realllly taking a toll on me. Red, white and blue day, Sammy didn't have any red clean. Today, Megan's kercheif was covering the flower on her shirt. She wanted to tuck it in her shoe, but since I'm not up on my gang garbage, I wasn't sure if that is something they do.
We got to school and then Sammy realized that she didn't have her hat. (From Frys grocery store for $3). Being the fabulous mom that I am, I dropped Megan off and took Sammy home to get her hat. Actually, I thought that would be easier than fighting with her and bodily dragging her into the school without her hat. Who knows what next week will bring!

Are you my mother?

Yesterday Sam and I had the chance to be in the car alone. While at a red light, Sammy looked over and saw a campaign poster with a large picture of a lovely family. Most of the family was blond and pale and two of the children were black. So Sammy was asking me how this was possible. So we started talking about adoption and she had a lot of questions. She asked me if I thought adoption was a sad thing and I told her that I think that it is a wonderful opportunity for the children and their new parents. After a few thoughts back and forth she then asked me if she was adopted. Huh? I asked if she thought she was and she told me no, but she was curious if I was keeping that information secret from her. Yeesh. Then she told me that she thought she was born on Leap Day instead of the 28th of February and that I was keeping that from her as well. So to prove that I am her mom and that she was born on the day that we always celebrate, I pulled out the birth certificate. Doesn't she know that I would lie to her about less important things? For instance...I don't know where that old, ripped and favorite dress of yours went. No, I didn't slip you medicine in your food. I know how to pick my battles. :) But she always keeps me in line. That is FO SHORE!

Autum....N

Why is there an N in autumn? I looooovvvvve Fall. The crisp air, the smell of leaves, sweatshirts, the fun decorations, the colors. Super Saturday:) When I lived in Utah, I would start putting out my fall decor on September 1. It makes me feel silly to do that here since we are still consistently in the triple digits temperature wise. So now I wait until September 15. And I believe we only got to 98 degrees today and seriously, it feels wonderful. We are able to spend time outside and see our long lost neighbors. Hopefully soon I can start sleeping with my window open.
(We don't really get the pretty leaves here until January. They change color for a couple of days and then they all fall off at once. Not really fulfilling.)

This weekend is our Super Saturday and I signed up for plenty. No way I'll be able to finish over at church. Plus, happy happy news! We are going up to Utah for Fall Break! It is duck hunting season once again so to Grandma's house we go. Nate can hunt, and I will be going to another Super Saturday in my sister's ward. We will celebrate Megan's birthday while we are there, meet up with friends we haven't seen in too long and have Piper fix us up all pretty! Nate will fly home after the weekend and I'll stay with the girls and we'll drive home that weekend.

Last night we had book club at Karina's house. This month was Les Miserables. I have to admit, I didn't read it. But Karina made French deserts for us all! Creme Brulee yummmy yummy.

This week is going a lot better than last week. Thank you everyone for your kind words and phone calls. I had a lot of people checking in with me. Love to you all!

Hahahahahahahaha

Make sure you go to the bottom and pause my music first!

BEST Date EVER!

This last Saturday Nate and I finally went to see Jim Gaffigan. Please understand that I have a really hard time keeping fun secrets. (The real secrets I am awesome at keeping) I bought the tickets back in June, then I had to wait until our anniversary in August to give them to Nate. I finally broke on my birthday and gave him the tickets a few days early:) Then I had to wait a month and a half for the day to come! Well, it was worth the wait. I haven't laughed this hard for so long. Like Nate said, it was so funny it was exhausting! I have new permanent wrinkles in my face from smiling so hard. We had so much fun and I would highly recommend his show to anyone. Thank you Alice and Diana for watching the kids!

Week 37

You've heard the term, It takes a Village to raise a child. Well, this week I am thankful for my village. Needless to say, it has been a very difficult week for me. I have felt drained and emotionally spent. Nate mentioned that I hadn't been blogging and I told him that I just couldn't. I didn't have it in me. And y'all know I'm the blogging police, so that says a lot:) I couldn't have gotten through this week without some really amazing people. I won't mention everyone by name, because it would be too personal and there is a lot. Diana, thank you for the beautiful flowers. She saw from across the street that I was having a hard time and these flowers have been brightening up my house all week. Thank you Alice. I think you saved two of us this last Saturday. The Dana family. Thanks for your support in letting me come over and hold Jack for my therapy and for letting us crash whenever we wanted. Thank you everyone for letting me talk, cry and for the hugs. And of course, my rock, Nate. Couldn't imagine this journey without you. What a blessing to have so many wonderful people in my life.
Today, things are looking waaaay up. I feel like I have a spring in my step. I have back the peaceful and loving feelings back in our home. I am thankful for Nate and Kyle and the priesthood that they hold. For the love of my Heavenly Father who knows us all personally and cares for us. We are never alone. I know that.

Manpower

I now have FIVE men on my linky list. How about that? (A world record perhaps?) I rather enjoy reading the men's blogs. I have my sweetie, Nate. Both brothers, Scott and Jeff. One nephew, Brit and Nate's cousin, Aaron. Pretty cool, eh? I'm a lucky girl to have so many cool guys in her life.
For our anniversary this year, I got Nate tickets to go see Jim Gaffigan. Okay, I got us both tickets. He is our favorite comedian and it is finally this weekend. WooHoo. We love to laugh and I can admit we have a twisted sense of humor. We were talking today about the last time we went to go see a comedian. Anyone remember Johnny B's in Provo? We used to go there when we were dating. Anyway, here is a clip from Jim Gaffigans famous Hot Pockets routine. You'll never look at them the same again...

Close Call and Time out for Girls

Last night and today I couldn't get our computer to connect with the Internet. I went into physical withdrawal symptoms. Okay, I didn't, but boy am I happy that it is back! I had an email for Classmates telling me I was popular and they were right! I had 13 emails by the time the computer was working. And only one was a weird one that I had to spam.
I've been a social butterfly as of late. Y'all probably don't need to hear all this, but since this is my diary, I will type it anyway. Let's see, Girls Night Out Thursday. The kiddos and I went to the mall friday with Claire. They had fun at the Puppy store and Disney Store. Sam found a Giselle dress she wouldn't mind having for Halloween. The dress was $80 and the tiara was $27. Hmmmm, don't think so! Pizza that night before Nate's softball game. He won:) Saturday night was totally fun. Laura invited me over for Arbonne night. Her friend was there and gave me a free make-over and tips. I'll take that any time. Laura is so cute and fun. I could hang out with her all day. Thanks for the invite! And if you've never used Arbonne, like me, it is fabulous. One day I hope to buy some:)
Sunday was fun. I had the Dana kids come over and hang out. It was like a well oiled machine over here. Happy kids=Happy Jen.
Today was Lunch Bunch with some ladies from church. I met a new friend and had a great time conversing with ladies I don't usually see as we are all busy with our callings at church.
I actually made dinner tonight and it was so good. I should do it every night. We shall see.

Week 36

This week I am feeling very blessed. It has truly been a great and fun week. I would like to give thanks this week for employment. I am so grateful that Nate has a good job where he enjoys going everyday, where he feels valued as an employee and that provides for the needs of our family. I am also grateful that Nate works so hard to get to where he is! His job has enabled me to be a stay at home mom and I love that so much. Now that my kids are in school all day, I have lots of free time, but I can still use this opportunity to go into the school and volunteer. A lot:) With so many people without jobs these days, we are truly blessed in this way. (No Nate, I am not blogging that I am grateful for the NFL.)

Girls Night Out!

I have to start out by thanking Erin for putting together a fun girls night out. We all say we should do a girls night, but she actually gets things done! I had sooo much fun last night. We started out with dinner at the Pita Jungle. And for about two hours, the ladies kept showing up! We ended up with quite the crowd and I'm sure we were very loud and obnoxious, but that's okay. After our yummy dinner we went over and saw the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. Or whatever it is called. I didn't see the first one and haven't read any books but you really don't need to. It was a cute movie and we had a lot of giggles throughout. Like at the end of the movie and one of the characters is in this lovely shimmery white nightgown and she is running to meet the love of her life. And you could tell that we all had the same thought at the same time. We were thinking about what our jammies at home look like. And I'm pretty sure none of us had a shimmery thing that we wear every night:) Painting t-shirt and cut off sweats anyone? Nate is one lucky guy. It was a perfect night and I can't wait to do it again!

We are Family

While I was out with the girls last night, my girls were busy here at home. Nate brought home a bunch of poster board and the girls were in Heaven! Being on Student Council, Sammy made a poster for Red Ribbon Week. Megan made a really cute one about our family. She is expecting Nate to take it to work and hang it up in his office.

It says the following:

Nate: My dad is the best. He works at Camping World.

Mom: Mom is awesome. She helps us with homework. Go mom!

Megan: Megan is a fantastic fifth grader. She is spunky and awesome!

Sam: Sam is a thriving third grader. She is awesome, she does her work. Go Sam!

Every family needs a cheerleader! We are lucky to have such a cute one!

Sound of Music

I have Sammy home today because she isn't feeling very good. We have the Sound of Music on our DVR. Have you ever watched this show with your little kids? Yeesh. So many questions.

Why are those ladies dressed like that? (the nuns)
What do Catholics believe?
How come everyone isn't Mormon?
If she is a nun, why is she kissing that guy?
Did they really sing all the time?
Did he really whistle at the kids?
Why are the running away? (How do you explain the Nazi's to your 8 year old? I can hardly get my head around it.)
Why are they walking over the mountain? Why don't they drive?

This is just a small sample of the questions I had to answer during this movie. Go ahead, watch it with your kids!

She loved the movie by the way:)

Labor Day

This Labor Day I saw not too much of the labor. Yay me. Nate started off his morning eeeeaaaarrrrllllly with a dove hunting trip with our neighbor Kyle. They had a lot of fun and were able to get their fill. The boys came home and immediately started on their honey-dos and labor day assignments. Yard work, trimming trees. Diana and I talked and talked. Yay me! Hey, I cleaned up the kitchen. Tonight the Dana's and the Woodard's got together for a swim/barbecue and had a ball. We had a plethora of food and swimming and I know for a fact that my kids were exhausted by the time we were done. Thanks Dana's for a great day!